15-03-2026, 11:11 PM
@qimqu
This is an interesting analysis. I would like to clarify one point about the self-citation model, since I think there may be a misunderstanding about how it works.
The self-citation model does not assume that a word is generated by modifying the immediately preceding word. It describes a scribe who copies from what is already visible on the page. The source word could be the previous word, but it could equally be a word three lines up or at the beginning of the same paragraph — any word within the scribe's visual field.
This means the model naturally predicts the radial/mixed pattern you found rather than strictly linear chains. A scribe looking at a page with "qokedy" visible in multiple places would produce variants that branch from that core form — not a sequential chain where each modification derives only from the word immediately before it. The "core" in your burst analysis corresponds to a frequently visible word that the scribe uses as a source multiple times. It is also handy to copy a word from the same position some lines above, which would further contribute to radial structures around a common source. In Timm (2014) I found that similar glyph groups appear above each other (in consecutive lines at the same position) twice as often as they appear side by side. This vertical copying pattern would naturally produce the radial bursts you observe.
Additionally, the model includes the possibility of combining parts of two visible source words to create a new word. In Timm & Schinner (2020) we describe this as: "Combine two source words to create a new word. As an example, the two words <chol> and <daiin> combine to <choldaiin> or <cholaiin>." This mechanism would also contribute to the mixed structures you observe, since a variant derived from two sources wouldn't fit neatly into either a purely radial or a purely linear pattern.
Your finding that bursts are larger in the Voynich than in control texts (3.45 vs 2-3 variants) and that the actual word order adds local organization beyond what the vocabulary alone produces is consistent with this mechanism. The vocabulary is built through self-citation across the text, and the local order reflects the scribe's immediate visual context.
Your permutation test is a nice way to separate these two effects.
This is an interesting analysis. I would like to clarify one point about the self-citation model, since I think there may be a misunderstanding about how it works.
The self-citation model does not assume that a word is generated by modifying the immediately preceding word. It describes a scribe who copies from what is already visible on the page. The source word could be the previous word, but it could equally be a word three lines up or at the beginning of the same paragraph — any word within the scribe's visual field.
This means the model naturally predicts the radial/mixed pattern you found rather than strictly linear chains. A scribe looking at a page with "qokedy" visible in multiple places would produce variants that branch from that core form — not a sequential chain where each modification derives only from the word immediately before it. The "core" in your burst analysis corresponds to a frequently visible word that the scribe uses as a source multiple times. It is also handy to copy a word from the same position some lines above, which would further contribute to radial structures around a common source. In Timm (2014) I found that similar glyph groups appear above each other (in consecutive lines at the same position) twice as often as they appear side by side. This vertical copying pattern would naturally produce the radial bursts you observe.
Additionally, the model includes the possibility of combining parts of two visible source words to create a new word. In Timm & Schinner (2020) we describe this as: "Combine two source words to create a new word. As an example, the two words <chol> and <daiin> combine to <choldaiin> or <cholaiin>." This mechanism would also contribute to the mixed structures you observe, since a variant derived from two sources wouldn't fit neatly into either a purely radial or a purely linear pattern.
Your finding that bursts are larger in the Voynich than in control texts (3.45 vs 2-3 variants) and that the actual word order adds local organization beyond what the vocabulary alone produces is consistent with this mechanism. The vocabulary is built through self-citation across the text, and the local order reflects the scribe's immediate visual context.
Your permutation test is a nice way to separate these two effects.
![[+]](https://www.voynich.ninja/images/collapse_collapsed.png)